Flash Before Your Eyes
by htbthomas
Summary: Barry wakes up—not in his hospital bed, but in his own. Barry/Felicity. (Felicity helps Barry figure out what's happening to him.) One-shot, complete.


His eyes open, just slits at first. The brightness of the unfamiliar room makes it feel like a dream, and he's soon back under.

It happens again, off and on for the next several hours. Sometimes there are shapes, sometimes there are voices, as heard from several feet underwater. Nothing seems real, nothing seems right.

When he opens his eyes completely, fully awake, fully aware, he's in his bedroom. By the lack of light filtering in, it must be the middle of the night.

"Huh," he says, sitting up. The last thing he remembered was seeing the explosion from the particle accelerator, the weird behavior of the chemicals, the breaking glass in his home lab, the flash of lightning and then falling. Somehow he'd made it from there to his bed. But he feels fine. No cuts or bruises, or no pain from them, anyway. He shrugs. It's not unusual for him to work for hours and not remember how he got to bed.

He scrabbles for his phone in the dark on his bedside table to check the time. It's not there. "Huh," he repeats.

There's a knocking sound then, frantic and quick. A voice coming through the door. He can't quite make it out. So he throws off the covers, grabs his robe from a chair and stumbles toward the sound. The knocking stops and starts up again just as he gets close enough to recognize words. "Barry? Barry! Are you there? Open up!"

It's… whoa. It sounds like Felicity Smoak.

What could Felicity be doing here, knocking on his door in the middle of the night? Is there some sort of Arrow-related crisis? His heart zings as he peers through the peep hole. Yes, it's definitely her, looking tired and worried. There has to be a crisis.

"Felicity?" he asks. "What's wrong?"

Through the perception-distortion of the glass, he can see her slump with relief. "Oh my god, Barry. You _are_ here. Are you all right?"

Barry frowns. Sure, he had a little lab accident before bed, but he feels fine. Kind of better than fine. Really alert, as if he'd had a couple of strong espresso shots. But not more than that, as he learned to his detriment in grad school. Pages of gibberish for his paper in Analytical Toxicology, which did not endear him to his major professor.

So why is she so worried about him? Why come in person instead of calling? He turns the door handle, poking his head through the opening. "Hey, Felicity. I'm fine. Is there something wrong? Something related to…" He lowers his voice. "...your boss?"

Felicity's worried expression comes back. She takes a step toward him. "No, things in Starling City are fine. Well, fine is a relative term, seems like there's always something. You know, to deal with." She gives her head an annoyed shake, and the gesture makes him grin. "I'm here because of you."

"Me? Why?"

She frowns even harder. "Can I come in?"

"Sure." He opens the door to her. "I mean, not that I mind an unexpected visit from a friend…" and one who he still hoped could be more than a friend, "but it's kinda the middle of night…"

Felicity closes the door and lifts a hand to her mouth, clearly in distress. "Oh, Barry."

"What?" Now he's getting worried, all those frowns and anxious looks rubbing off on him. He looks down. "Do I have something on... my…"

His words skitter to a halt. There's a charred band of plastic around his wrist, dangling there like a gigantic missed clue. "Wha…?" is all he can manage to get out.

"You were in the hospital, Barry." She takes another step closer and places her hand on his arm. He looks down at the fingers there, her touch almost a tingle. She adds softly, "You disappeared from your room."

Barry struggles to understand. "From the lightning strike last night? Have I been out for a whole day?"

Felicity makes a sound in her throat, bringing his eyes to her face. She presses her lips together once, then says, "You've been in a coma for months."

* * *

His fingers are wrapped around a hot cup of coffee, but he can't feel the warmth at all. Just numbness and cold. He's wearing pajamas now, soft flannel ones that remind him of the ones his dad used to wear. That isn't helping either. Everything is fuzzy and yet crisply clear at the same time.

He tries to process everything Felicity has told him. The lightning had sent him into a coma. He'd apparently lain undiscovered for several hours. Then he must have been late for work, later than usual, anyway; someone at the station had worried and called his super to check on him. Felicity had come to visit him in the hospital more than once—the thought briefly warms him like the coffee hasn't been able to yet—but doctors had almost given up hope that there would be any change. Then he'd shown signs of starting to wake… and was mysteriously gone from his hospital bed. All without any hospital staff seeing him. Felicity had hacked into the hospital security footage and told him there was absolutely no sign of him in the halls during the window when he had to have left.

So how did he end up back here? Out the window, Arrow-style?

But apparently no one reported a guy sleep-parkouring his way across Central City in an open-backed hospital gown—what had he done with that anyway?—flashing the nighttime traffic. "So… no one saw me get home. At all?"

"Not even the cameras. It's like you," she screws up her face, perplexed, "teleported here or something."

Barry lets out a short laugh. "Right. Maybe… the footage was altered? Looped somehow?"

"I checked for that." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a tablet, swiping the screen to life. "If someone did that, they're good. Better than me." She grimaces as if that's rare. "But there was _something_, something I can't explain, maybe a glitch." She plays back a clip of the hallway outside his apartment. The image blurs for an instant, almost too fast to catch.

"Is that the glitch?" At her nod, he asks, "Have you tried slowing it down?"

She's already advancing the video frame by frame, then stopping and pointing toward something on the screen. It's a beige-colored blur, just on the left edge. "What is that?"

"I don't know. And it only appears on that single frame."

"Evidence of video tampering?"

Felicity shrugs. "Maybe, but it's not like anything I've ever seen. Plus, if someone was trying to erase video evidence of your trip home from the hospital, then…"

"…why I am here, and safe?" He turns the coffee cup in his hands, frowning at the black surface of the liquid inside.

"Exactly. What would be the purpose?"

He doesn't know. There's an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, at the craziness of this situation, at all the unanswered questions. He glances at Felicity, who is typing away on her tablet keyboard, brows drawn together in concentration. The burden lightens a little—if there was anyone who could help him figure this out, it was Felicity Smoak.

But the uneasy feeling in his stomach suddenly turns into a full-fledged rumbling, enough to startle Felicity. She turns to him with a raised eyebrow. "Hungry?"

He grimaces. "Apparently my stomach just woke from its coma as well." He turns despairingly toward his kitchenette. If he's been in the hospital for months, there's probably not much edible to be found, except maybe a few packets of ramen. That's not going to cut it.

She sets her tablet off to the side. "We can do this as easily while eating. You want to order some pizza? Maybe Chinese?" His stomach growls again, and she doesn't hide the smirk.

"The way I'm feeling I could hit up an open-all-night buffet."

"They have those?"

"Not here," he says, shaking his head. "Maybe in Vegas." Really, how long did it take to just zip out to Las Vegas? Wait. Why is he actually considering this? The hunger is making him lose it.

Felicity raises the phone to her ear. "Pizza, then. What do you like on it?"

"Everything." His mouth starts to water, so much that he turns away and clamps a hand over his mouth while Felicity is talking to the pizza place. Plus, didn't he used to be a pepperoni and cheese kinda guy?

To distract himself, he levers himself up off the couch and shuffles toward the kitchen. With pizza, there are usually leftovers, and that means a place to store them. His refrigerator is probably every bit as disgusting as he imagines it will be. He reaches for the handle, wincing in advance for what he'll see…

The inside is spotlessly clean. Not even a bottle of crusty mustard to be found. From the couch, Felicity says, "I cleaned it out a month ago. The stuff inside was starting to get a bit rank. Couldn't have you coming home to that. I mean, you were in that coma for months, with no way of knowing if you were going to wake up or when, of course I mean _when_, because obviously you did..."

He turns toward her. "You did that for me?"

She looks down at the floor, a pretty blush staining her cheeks. "Yes. It's what any friend would do."

Friend? His heart sinks. Since he met her, he's wished for more. But even though it feels like just the other day he held her in his arms while they danced, for her, it's really been months. Months to worry about him, or forget about him until the news came of his disappearance from the hospital. He doesn't know which it is. "Just..." _a friend?_ he starts to say, and then feels like a desperate fool. Instead, he finishes, "...thanks. You didn't have to."

"I was coming to see you every couple of weeks anyway. Gave me something to do besides worry."

His heart floats back up. She _did_ worry about him. He doesn't suppress the smile that comes to his face. "And kept the lights on for me, too?"

Felicity smiles back and shrugs. "Fiddling with your power bill was a lot less work for me than using rubber gloves and bleach."

He comes back and sits beside her, taking her hands in his. "Still, thanks for that, as well." He holds them for a moment longer than necessary, but many less moments than he wants to, and then lets them go. "How long can you stay?"

"As long as you need me to," she says, her eyes going serious behind the lenses. "The team has things under control back in Starling City."

"The Team? Oliver and Diggle? Or has the team expanded while I was… indisposed?"

"It's expanded." She presses her lips together. "Sorry, I can't really say more than that. It's not my place to reveal anything."

"Like it wasn't your place when you brought me in?"

"Something like that. It's not that I don't trust you—you know I do, or I would never have asked you to help with Oliver—but with everything going on back home, it's probably best that you don't know them, and they don't know you. Safer."

"For them or for me?"

She squinches up one side of her face. "Maybe both?"

"Gotcha," he says. He can live with it, for now, as long as he has Felicity in his corner. His stomach growls again, then, and he can swear that his stomach is starting to cannibalize itself. "How long until that pizza arr—?"

The doorbell rings. Felicity stands, patting his leg. "I'll get it."

She returns carrying three boxes. "All for me?"

"Two for you with everything. Got myself a veggie."

Barry doesn't even bother with finding a plate. He opens the first box and starts to eat. The pizza tastes _amazing_—like the best food ever invented. Which place did she call, anyway? he idly thinks while starting on another slice.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow down there, Speedy." She laughs, but there's a tinge of amazement.

"What?" he asks around a mouthful. "Told you I was hungry." Then he realizes that he's just been stuffing himself in front of the girl he likes. Smooth, Allen. Real smooth. He grabs a handful of napkins to wipe his mouth. "Sorry."

He glances over at where Felicity is holding a single slice of veggie with one bite taken out of it.

Her box shows that's the only slice so far. "No, I get that you're hungry. It's just… you _literally_ inhaled that pizza. And I mean literally."

"What? I…" He trails off when he sees the box. Like a bizarre mirror of Felicity's pizza, there is only one slice left. "How did I—I don't even remem—what?"

She sets down the slice on her plate and wipes her hands quickly while talking. "It was like watching a video on fast forward." She places a hand on his forehead, her eyebrows drawing together in concern. "The lightning strike. Tell me again exactly what you remember?"

He swallows. What is she saying? "Um. There was a storm outside. I was working over there in my home lab, watching the news about the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator, when I noticed a bright light outside, a huge reddish explosion that knocked out all the power in my section of the city. Then in the dim light, I noticed some of the chemicals on the shelves were bubbling and acting strangely… before I could look into it, my skylight exploded in shards of glass, there was a flash, and…"

"And what?" She's now checking his pulse, and the intimate warmth of her fingers is quite distracting.

"And I woke up in bed when I heard the doorbell. Everything else between is just dark, or a fuzzy dream."

"You don't feel… sick… or strange in any way?"

"No…" She's pressing on various muscle groups—something she picked up from working on Oliver, perhaps?—and it's becoming harder to concentrate on anything other than her touch. He tries to focus. Did she really say what he thinks she said? "Wait… are you saying that you think I… got super pizza-eating powers?"

Felicity stops and gives him a look from over the rim of her glasses. "No." She chuckles. "If you did, what would your superhero costume look like? Red and yellow polkadots?" Then she eyes him up and down for a moment, long enough that a blush starts to creep upward from his neck. "Though red is definitely your color."

He gives her a mock gasp of indignation, plucking at his red plaid pajama bottoms. "Hey, red is awesome."

She nudges him with a fist, and he's both relieved and disappointed that she's stopped her impromptu examination. "Anyway, no, there have been… developments… back in Starling City. We've had run-ins with a couple of guys who've gained super-strength, stamina and healing through an injection—a serum called the Mirakuru."

This time his gasp is real. "Seriously? Do you have documented evidence?" His brain starts to race. Oliver is a highly-trained vigilante, but even he doesn't possess superpowers.

She nods. "I've observed the strength increase, seen the healing factor at work, taken blood samples... the chemical composition of the formula is still eluding me, though we're hoping to find a cure."

"Do you…" It takes a couple swallows to line the words up in the right order in his head. "...do you think someone injected me? At the hospital?"

Felicity taps a finger against her pursed lips. "It could explain how you suddenly woke up. How you managed to get home without anyone noticing you. Maybe you scaled the buildings…?"

He bares his teeth in a grimace. "I hope not."

"Hmm." She points at the pizza box. "Think you could do it again, let me film you? For science?" She taps at her tablet a couple of times, and lifts it toward him. "That is, if you're even hungry anymore."

"I don't know…" He gives the box a tentative glance. Then his stomach growls again. "Guess I still am. However that's possible."

"You _did_ spend months living off of nothing but I.V. fluids." She taps another button, and with a _boop_ from the device, she waves him on to begin.

"For science!" he jokes, then uber-seriously, intones, "Pizza trial number 1. 2:47 AM." Then he reaches for a slice and starts to eat. It tastes just as amazing as it had before, almost like it's the first slice of pizza he's had in years, not minutes. It's easy to forget he is being filmed. When he looks down again, the pizza is gone. "Wow. How long did that take?" He looks back at Felicity. She wears a puzzled expression instead of an amazed one.

Tapping the screen and setting down the tablet, she shakes her head. "Just a normal amount of time this time around. Though after two whole pizzas, surely your stomach is about to explode." She takes off her glasses and rubs at her eyes. "Maybe I'm seeing things. It is pretty late."

He suddenly realizes how tired she must be. "I'm so sorry. It's really late and here you are, trying to figure me out through the combined power of caffeine and curiosity alone."

He's had plenty of sleep—months worth of sleep—and instead of feeling weakened by the long bed rest, feels like he could run a marathon. Maybe it's the coffee on a stomach now unused to it. Maybe it's Felicity, her presence nearly as strong a stimulant to him.

She replaces her glasses and gives him a small grin. "Wouldn't be the first time. Or the hundredth." He nods in commiseration, adding, "You want to pick this back up tomorrow? That is, if you've got the time…"

"I've got the next few days—barring any earthquake devices or chemical attacks in Starling City."

"So until tomorrow, then." Her responding laugh turns into an uncontrollable yawn and he suddenly feels twice as bad. "Hey, you have someplace to stay? N—not that I'm saying you should stay here, I mean a hotel or something."

"I knew what you meant, Barry. And yes. I made a reservation before I left. But…"

A thrill runs through him. "But what?"

"But you're right. I could be called away on some Arrow-emergency at any moment. And we still don't know how you got home or why."

"So…" He doesn't dare to say what he hopes aloud.

"Maybe I should stay." She blinks a couple of times, rapidly. Is that nervousness? "On the couch."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I used to sleep in the chair next to your hospital bed. This," she pats the cushion beside her, "will be much more comfortable."

The hope he was afraid to utter blooms in his chest. He can't believe there's someone who cares so much. He wasn't sure he'd ever find that again after what happened to his parents. "I'll get some blankets."

She touches his arm lightly as he starts to rise. "Thanks."

"I should be thanking you," he says, sinking back down. He covers her hand with his, even more tentatively than he would have when they first met. "You didn't have to do any of that."

She focuses on his hand, where his thumb starts to stroke gently at her skin. "I wanted to." Then she looks back up at him.

Barry swallows, feeling frozen in time, unmoving except for the patterns his thumb is tracing on the back of her hand. Her hand swivels to clasp his, and she starts to lean in, slowly, looking as unsure as he feels. Why can't he move? He wants this, doesn't he?

Her face draws ever closer, her eyes locked on his. When she's a hair's breadth away, his eyes flutter closed, and he exhales into the kiss. Pressing his lips to hers is like a bolt of electricity—the kind that sets your passion aflame, not the kind that puts you into a coma—and his earlier inertia is gone.

He pulls her into him, deeper into the kiss, drawing from her a happy sigh. She wraps her arms around his neck and scoots closer, threading her fingers through his hair. He breathes out her name as one of his hands traces the curve of her jaw. Felicity, without breaking the kiss, frees her hair from her usual ponytail with one hand. He smiles around her lips, burying his hand deep into her waves, and she rewards him with a groan into his mouth.

Now that they're kissing, now that they're really doing this, he can't get enough of her. He could spend all night just exploring every angle, analyzing every movement to see what she likes. He feels so awake, so alive, as if the months of his coma somehow stored his energy like a super-charged battery. But then Felicity pulls back to break into an uncontrollable yawn. "I'm sorry," she says, covering her mouth in embarrassment.

"No, I'm sorry. I should go get those blankets now."

She pulls him toward her to place a light kiss on his lips. "Just hitting pause until the morning." She kisses him again. "On this…" Another kiss. "And the research."

Barry grins. He feels like his heart is going to vibrate out of his chest with excitement. Felicity Smoak wants to keep kissing _him_, Barry Allen. The girl who spends her nights with a bonafide superhero wants to spend more than her nights with him. "Let me get you those blankets." He kisses her back, a little longer than she had, then stands. "Back in a flash."

He races for the linen closet, his mind spinning, colors and shapes blurring together in his happiness. Suddenly he's standing there with the blankets in his hands, not really sure how they got there. He takes a deep breath—he has to get it together, doesn't want to scare her off.

So as suavely as he can manage, he shifts the blankets in his arms, with a few more than she'll probably need just to be safe—does she sleep cold or hot?—and walks calmly back into the living area. "Here you go, I didn't know many you needed, so…"

Felicity's eyes go wide, and she sits up straight on the couch. "Uh, Barry, I really meant 'in the morning…'" She bites her lip and looks away.

Barry frowns. "Huh?" He looks down at the blankets in his arms. "What's wr—?" But he doesn't finish his question because it's immediately clear. He's standing there, completely naked, the blankets only covering the most private parts of his anatomy. Barry pulls the blankets around himself to cover his nudity, coughing and sputtering in alarm. "I—uh, I swear—I wasn't trying to—"

Felicity is looking at him again, but instead of anger or embarrassment, or even disgust, she looks puzzled. "Is that… smoke?"

He sniffs the air. She's right. There's an acrid burning smell, like singed fiber, and he spins in a circle to see where it's coming from. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I don't know what…"

"Barry!" she shouts, standing up. He freezes. "It's coming… from you."

"That's…" He lifts a shoulder to sniff it. She's right. "I just went to get the blankets and came right back…" He squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head to clear it. "Did I go into a fugue state? How long was I gone?"

Felicity walks toward him, slowly, carefully. "Only a matter of seconds. I was surprised by how quick you were… and then I was more surprised by something, uh, else."

He pushes past her reminder of his state of dress. "Seconds? Did I… super-speed?" It seems so ridiculous, but after what Felicity thought she saw with the pizza, and her talk of super-serums, anything could be possible. "And burn my clothes off?"

She comes close enough to reach a tentative hand toward his upper arm. Her fingers skitter across the skin as if expecting it to be scalding hot, but then they settle. "You're not even warm to the touch."

Suddenly, waking up in bed with nothing on but a charred hospital bracelet around his wrist makes sense. So when he left the hospital tonight, he super-sped home, naked? Talk about flashing people. Except it must have been so fast that not even security cameras captured him. "I…" He feels woozy. "I need to sit down."

She helps him to the couch, gently and all-business at the same time. "In your lab equipment over there…" She nods toward the other side of the room. "Is there a syringe?"

He nods. "There's even a centrifuge, if the lightning didn't damage it."

She starts to stand, but he reaches for her. "Wait… you're exhausted, and I'm…"

"Exhausted, too?" She settles back beside him, smoothing a hand over his hair.

"Yeah, I don't understand. I was so full of energy only a few minutes ago."

She reaches over to the wall switch and turns out the lights. "Then you'd better recharge." She pulls him toward her to lie beside her on the couch. It's just wide enough. "We've got all day tomorrow to study this—or as long as it takes. We'll figure it out."

He nods—he has no idea what is happening to him, but somehow he's sure that they _will_ figure it out. Together.

She settles against him, where she seems to fit just right. His eyes flutter closed… then pop open wide. "Um…"

"What?" she murmurs sleepily.

He blushes, glad she can't see it in the dark. "Maybe I'd better get some pants on."


End file.
